has been prepared to deal with the rapidly changing situation in Japan

08/05/2012

August is the Month of Mourning in Japan

As July turns to August, it is the month of mourning. Atomic bombing Memorials of Hiroshima and Nagasaki before August 15, the day when we remember as the day of ending the war.

During this time of year, mass media prepare TV programs for retrospectively reminding the viewers of "Horrors and Miseries of War" by showing the U.S. forces films, in which we see corpses of Japanese soldiers lying around, dying Japanese soldiers, Japanese soldiers being burned to death by flamethrowers, and then Japanese women jumping off Banzai cliff, Saipan again this year.

I have to remind you here that all those programs are nothing educational but so designed as to input distorted and masochistic views of the Japanese history into TV viewers by showing the war dead. They are political propaganda being manipulated by the leftists trying to increase their power while just catering for the needs of the occupation forces. Thus, cabinet members of the leftist party, as the calendar turns to August, feel so relieved to see those propaganda films being shown on TV, trying to influence the Japanese viewers with distorted and masochistic views of history. And, then they believe it justified to ignore "Yasukuni Shrine".

Furthermore, those hypes the Japanese mass media use in August are those filmed by the U.S. forces. In other words, the scenes depicted in them are nothing but the American soldiers hunting down the Japanese soldiers as preys by guns and flamethrowers after the Japanese forces ceased to carry out the organized warfare.

And, the mere fact that the Japanese media continue to show those flicks produced by the U.S. forces, could be interpreted as subtly indicating that the Japanese media harbor the same mentality as the American soldiers who treated the Japanese soldiers like "Cockroaches". This shows that the Japanese mass media never mourn the war dead but they insult them!

Just ask yourself !

The Japanese mass media have so far refrained from publicly showing the dead bodies of those victimized in massive quakes and Tsunami that occurred on March 11 because they just can't publicly display the horrible pictures of the loved ones. But, foreign mass media continue to show no compassion and respect to those dead lying around in the disaster stricken areas by publicly exhibiting them although we can not stop the foreign mass media from doing so. One could easily estimate the degree of sorrow over deaths of their familiy members the surviving families would have when seeing them.

Similarly, just think of the reason behind the un-compassionate act of the Japanese mass media ! They regard the Japanese war dead as some kind of "Cockroaches" just like the American forces do.

How could they possibly insult the Japanese war dead in August, the month of mourning? What kind of mentality do they have? Don't they realize that they are our comrades enshrined in Yasukuni Shrine?

I further write a few points.

Remember the films showing the Japanese women jumping off Banzai cliff in Saipan? The American camera crew knew exactly where the best place to view and film the Japanese women jumping off the cliff was and then waited for them to show up. Because the American soldiers chased them to the cliff. We notice that they turned around to see who's coming after them before jumping off. The last image they saw before jumping off must have been the American soldiers coming after them with grinning laugh. Those Japanese women knew well what would happen to them if captured alive by the American soldiers. They chose to die rather than experiencing humiliation by the American soldiers.

They were Yamato Nadeshikos (Note:Japan women's soccer team "Nadeshiko Japan" named after Yamato Nadeshiko) so proud of being the Japanese. Why do the Japanese media keep showing their final moments ?

Notes: The above is an excerpt from the blog published in Japanese by Mr. Shingo Nishimura, (西村 真悟, Nishimura Shingo, born July 7, 1948) is a Japanese politician, an independent and a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature). A native of Sakai, Osaka and graduate of Kyoto University Faculty of Law he was elected to the Diet for the first time in 1993.

The above translation is provisional and subject to change.

Yamato Nadeshiko literally means "Japanese Dianthus", a flower believed to be lovely and yet strong resembling to the Japanese women, always respecting the Japanese tradition and culture.